Samsung Galaxy Watch 9 & Watch Ultra 2: Bigger Battery, Brighter Screen, Fatter Price Tag

Unpacked lands July 22 — and the leaks are already in. Good news for your training, less good for your wallet.

Samsung has locked in its next Galaxy Unpacked for July 22, 2026 in London, and the worst-kept secret in wearables is on the menu: the Galaxy Watch 9 and flagship Galaxy Watch Ultra 2. Serial leaker Billbil-kun (via Dealabs) has now spilled the European prices and dates, so there's not much left to unwrap. The bad news: the whole Watch 9 line reportedly goes up €30 over the Watch 8, and the Ultra 2 jumps €50 to €749 (it holds at $699 in the US — Europe eats the increase). The base Watch 9 starts at €409. The industry's excuse: soaring memory-chip prices. Expect the usual pre-order bonuses to soften it. The good news — and where it gets interesting for hybrid athletes — is the Ultra 2's spec sheet: a blinding 5,000-nit display for reading mid-run in full sun, a battery bumped ~35% to 800 mAh, IP69K dust/water resistance, and a switch from Exynos to Qualcomm's new Snapdragon Wear Elite chip in both models for better performance and battery life. That chip swap is the real headline — the kind of change that could finally fix Samsung's long-running battery-drain gripes. Pre-orders open at the reveal on July 22, with retail availability from August 6, 2026. SWEATLAS take:** Brighter screen, bigger battery, modern chip — exactly what a race-day watch needs. The €50 bump stings, but if the battery claims hold, this might be the first Samsung wearable that survives a full HYROX weekend without begging for a charger. Enough to pull Garmin loyalists off their Fenix? We'll find out July 22.